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Friday, July 10, 2009

Safe Space From Hate; Safe Space For Anger

So this is kinda but not quite an entirely new concept for me, stemming from this discussion at Questioning Transphobia on some waah-waah-being-called-cis-is-insulting dipshittery going on at Pam's House Blend. I can't seem to find the comment within which I found this concept, but it struck me as being perfectly relevant, in light of the tone argument:

We need a safe space for anger.

There will be times when we will find it an inhuman request for me to contain the rage that is borne from daily abuse and we want to let it out. Is it too much to ask for a space where the marginalized can go to vent their anger? To be as rude as possible in order to express their frustrations with the dominant, oppressing groups?

Without members of the dominant groups getting pissy and offended?

Taking into consideration that members of dominant groups get to troll around being hostile to members of marginalized groups, abusing them, anywhere, pretty much everywhere, there're so few spaces where the marginalized get to go to vent their spleen.

I'm quite sure it's not healthy for some people to keep in all that anger, so it does strike me as very important to have a space for this anger to be let out, without privileged groups butting in and derailing from that anger.

We need our spaces to name our troubles. We need our spaces to name the sources of our anger, wihtout said sources getting vocally offended and trying to turn the argument around.

I hope if this blog ever gets any amount of attention that I'll be able to remember this and shut down dominant voices effectively, so the marginalized voices can be heard, loud and clear.